Firstly I tried to do the default set up of WAN(Cable modem)>V-portal>Lynksys WRT54G. Phone line worked ok but couldn't get internet access. I eventually got it working by swapping the WRT54G and the V-portal and using port forwarding.

Now my phoneline has gone down and I am trying to simplify things. One thing I was wonderiing was could I have the following WAN(cable modem)>Basic switch> and both the Linksys and the V-portal plugged into separate sockets on the switch?

The set up in in a vacation rental property I own in Kissimmee, FL and I am relying on the property manager to go in and do the manual/physical reboots so I can't ask them to spend a lot of time on it. I live in the UK and did the set up while I was visiting last week.

My gut feeling is that it cannot be done in this way. Does anyone have any other suggestions.

I would not recommend the switch approach. When you put the two routers one after the other, make sure that if DHCP is enabled on both that the subnet addressing is different. For example, if the V-portal is using 192.168.15.xxx then set the WRT to use 192.168.16.xxx .